Celtel Abolishes Roaming Charges Across Central Africa

MTC subsidiary, Celtel says that it is expanding One Network, it's borderless mobile network, to include the Republic of Congo, Gabon, and Democratic Republic of Congo. This comes nine months after the successful launch of One Network in East Africa.

In September 2006, Celtel offered its customers in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda the opportunity to move freely across geographical borders without roaming call surcharges and without having to pay to receive incoming calls. Speaking last September in Kampala, Nairobi, and Dar es Salaam during simultaneous press briefings Celtel told the public that this was only the beginning of their efforts to connect Africa as no other mobile phone operator has been able to do to date, and that their efforts would not stop within East Africa.

Under a year later the service is now being expanded to include three other countries within Central Africa.

Commenting on the expansion of One Network, Moez Daya, Chief Executive Officer of Celtel International said, "We are delighted to bring 160 million people from East and Central Africa closer together through One Network. In a region historically dependent on freedom of movement across borders, we are now offering a communications solution that fits the needs of our customers, breaking down barriers and making life better for businesses, families and individuals from West to East. We have made the service easy to use and convenient by putting in place more than 140,000 places where our customers can buy airtime."

Following the One Network extension into Central Africa, post-paid and pre-paid Celtel subscribers in all six countries will now be able to make calls at local rates, receive incoming calls free of charge and top-up their pre-paid phones with locally-bought airtime cards. Alternatively, Celtel's prepaid customers may top up their accounts with airtime prepaid cards they have brought from their home networks, whether in the Republic of Congo, Gabon, The Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Tanzania or Uganda. The One Network service is automatically activated upon crossing the geographic border into one of the six countries, with no prior registration required or sign-up fee charged.

Commenting on the impact One Network will have on the economic development for Central and East Africa, Mr. Abdoulie Janneh, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa said, "We warmly welcome the extension of One Network, which will provide a significant boost to intra-African trade. By better linking markets across regions, by improving connectivity and lowering costs of cross border trade, we are giving domestic businesses new opportunities to grow and are encouraging larger multi-national producers to serve better-connected African markets from within the region."

Posted to the site on 7th June 2007